This year's decision by the Nobel committee to recognise the role of women in
peace-making has been hailed. Who are the women honoured?

Affectionately known as Liberia’s “Iron Lady”, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became Africa’s first elected female head of state in 2005, following a presidential run-off in which she defeated George Weah, the former Manchester City footballer.

An American university graduate and an employee of both the UN and the World Bank, she forged a reputation as leading member of a rare breed of educated professionals in a country being torn apart by gluttonous and barbaric warlords.

She was defeated by one of the most notorious of these men, Charles Taylor, in an election in 1997.

One of only four senior ministers to escape the execution of the mass execution of the cabinet following a coup led by Master Sergeant Samuel Doe, she emerged as a leading champion for the cause of democracy during Liberia’s brutal 12-year civil war.

Her credentials were burnished after she was twice jailed by Doe, who was kidnapped and tortured to death by Prince Johnson, one of her rivals in next week’s presidential election.

Born into poverty - a fact that endeared her to many Liberians - she negotiated significant debt relief for people and embarked on an ambitious rebuilding programme. But many Liberians believe she has not made progress significantly quickly, and - until she won the Nobel Peace Prize - she looked likely to lose next week. Unusually in Africa, she is expected to hand over power gracefully if she is indeed defeated.

LEYMAH GBOWEE

Leymah Gbowee led women to defy feared warlords and pushed men towards peace during one of Africa’s bloodiest wars.

Without her, and the group of women she led in prayer and public protest for much of the conflict, many believe the fighting, which left more than 200,000 people dead, would not have been brought to an end in 2003.

It was a dangerous business, but, as she wrote in her autobiography “Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer and Sex Changed a Nation at War,” the women had lost their fear “because the worst things imaginable had already happened to us.” For three years, she led non-violent demonstrations, but her real impact came in 2002 when she convinced Christian and Muslim women alike to refuse to have sex with their husbands until the civil strife had ended.

The “sex strike” caught the public imagination and peace talks began.

When negotiations came close to collapse, she and her followers physically prevented the warring factions from leaving the room where the talks were being held by blocking the exits. A fortnight later, they came to terms and a peace treaty was formally announced.

TAWAKUL KARMAN

Mrs Karman, who is 33, has openly challenged the repressive system in her country for years.

Since 2007 she has staged weekly protests with fellow members of Women Journalists Without Chains, the movement she founded two years earlier, to campaign against injustice.

She narrowly escaped with her life last year when a female would-be assassin attempted to stab her with a traditional dagger known as a jambiya. Mrs Karman was rescued by fellow protesters.

Initially, her ire was primarily concentrated against Yemen’s corrupt local potentates; she first started campaigning on behalf of a group of villagers evicted from their land by a grasping tribal chief with close ties to the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

But as the Arab Spring spread to Yemen, she emerged as a natural champion of ordinary protesters, someone untainted by the blatant ambition of other leaders of the revolt, whose ranks have been swollen by defecting generals and powerful tribal chiefs.

Mrs Karman, who was born in the same year that Mr Saleh became president of what was then North Yemen, became a figure of hate for the regime, which twice imprisoned her â “ only making her more popular as a result.

Some in the West may still question her credentials, however. She is a member of Yemen’s main Islamist opposition party Islah, whose most infamous figure is Abdul Majeed al-Zindani, regarded by the United States as a terrorist for his former links to Osama bin Laden.

But Islah is a broad movement with competing factions, and Mrs Karman has earned the enmity of its more extremists fringes for championing the cause of women’s rights and campaigning against child marriage.

Making a bold statement in a highly conservative nation, she also stopped wearing the face-covering niqab, choosing instead just to wear a headscarf.